


Ask Not What I Can Give

by Mercury17



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 08:25:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12250659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercury17/pseuds/Mercury17
Summary: Morse finds himself having a slightly rough morning.





	Ask Not What I Can Give

The wall was colder than the air, and pieces of it crumbled off at the slightest touch. Morse looked at his suddenly dusty hand. Of all the hands to touch it over the centuries the stone chose him to break for. Endeavour Morse, pulling Oxford apart one grimy hand-hold at a time. 

He wasn't sure where he was. He realised that quite suddenly. The worry he expected did not come with the thought. He knew this city, he probably wasn't lost, just a bit dazed and confused. That rationalisation did not succeed in being as comforting as it was meant to be.

There were stone walls behind him and to his left, cavernous darkness to his right and a worn a grassy hill in front of him. Overall that could be anywhere, he couldn't pinpoint every old wall or ancient basement in the city right now. The hill was the most unsettling part of where he now was, because he would eventually need to climb it. He'd already fallen down it, maybe his body would instinctively know how to get back up and he wouldn't have to do any work.

He wasn't quite sure what time it was. It had been around four in the morning when he'd set out - another sleepless night and lead that wouldn't wait. From his flat to the station to a disused office, from there to the clearly-a-front salon (which if had been a salon definitely shouldn't have had that many people in it at that time in the morning), then some running then... well he didn't have his watch on him anymore. It was nearing daytime though. No sun yet but a pale pre-dawn lilac had washed across the sky. Sunrise was... half seven? The dew was making his trousers wet.

Morse noticed a spider crawling on his left shoulder. He went to knock it off, then was abruptly reminded that he shouldn't be moving his right arm. He especially shouldn't be moving his wrist in a swatting motion. He gasped and hunched over, resettling his wrist so it lay still in his lap, but then he remembered that bending over hurt his ribs, and moving to adjust for that hurt his leg and... At some point in that ordeal the spider went from the target of his swearing to a fire-forged friend. He gently shifted his shoulder so it could re-perch itself on the crumbling wall.

No one would know where he was. He didn't know where he was, although he was still hoping for that part of his memory to come back. He'd been jumping case to case all week, and no one would know he'd left at four in the morning to investigate this particular chain of reasoning. If pushed, Morse would admit that not one of his colleagues would be particularly _surprised_ to find him in his current predicament, but though he might bemoan their intelligence not even he would expect them to _know_ where he was. Which meant he'd have to get back to the world himself. Not that waiting for a rescue would have improved his mood or seemed any more palatable to him.

____

____

__Surely it had been colder when he left his flat in the night? Why hadn't he brought a coat? He knew from experience the cold would become a real problem very soon. He was damp and in pain and his thoughts weren't always letting him know what they were, but the cold would stop him moving. He would get up that hill eventually, just a little longer to gather strength. He would wait until the sun broke the horizon._ _

__Having made that bargin with himself, Morse knew he would stick to it so he could relax for the next few minutes. Just boredom to contend with before he began to make the climb. Morse sat on the ground, injured and shivering and lost, and bemoaned that he hadn't brought suspect financial records with him to read._ _

__-_ _

__Several hours later Morse would be sitting in DeBryn's office after begging yet another medical favour from him. Debryn would gently bemoan Morse getting himself into yet another injurious situation, and make Morse promise not to do it again. Morse would nod in agreement and thank him, but they would both know the agreement was hollow because that was not how Morse could live. He would never see the danger until afterwards, because that's not how he looked at the world when working._ _

__DeBryn then give a tired smile and ask if Morse could at least seek medical attention doing paperwork next time,and really, DeBryn was a pathologist not a doctor. Morse would laugh and smile ruefully because they both knew that was not how his priorities worked._ _

__Morse would go home that evening with every intention of following doctor's orders and sleeping. But he knew there would always be another thought to follow._ _

__-_ _

__Morse saw all this future clearly, but knew he was doomed to repeat it. All he could do was wait for the sun to rise and a watch a spider spin its house and hope it would be just as easy to get up next time._ _


End file.
